


Combustion, Lily,Lily, Redox

by aderyn



Series: Deep Map [2]
Category: Sherlock (TV)
Genre: curtains on fire, hidden weapons, oxidation
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2012-06-20
Updated: 2012-06-20
Packaged: 2017-11-08 04:56:25
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 265
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/439380
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/aderyn/pseuds/aderyn
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>If you’ve never been reduced (expanded) to helpless gratitude for the close proximity of another person  you once thought you’d never see again in a gardening shed while mining your pockets for matches and ammo--that’s all right.  You still can.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Combustion, Lily,Lily, Redox

They confess their sleeplessness over breakfast.  Sherlock is eating breakfast. Porridge with raisins and  brown sugar. John has made it. Sherlock is eating and John is trying not to enjoy himself too much. Good? he asks. Hmm, says Sherlock, with the other hand on (in) something burnt and blue.  

 

Mrs. Hudson has left lilies on the table. They’re funeral flowers for goddsake but also purity, chastity, clarity,the milk of heavenly kindness and a number of other things John hasn’t cared to research since Sherlock came back.

 

True:

Redox reactions involve the transfer of electrons from one involved species to another.

 

The homeless network is electric this morning.

 

If it’s folly to look into the heart of things, it’s still all right if you do.

 

Fire makes for a terrible metaphor.

 

Places are best known by the things you overhear.

 

A garden is a terrible place to hide a gun.

 

Twillight makes a great many things possible.

 

Oxidation make a great many things possible.

 

Sugar when burnt is even better.

 

Alchemy says the lily is lunar.  Chemistry says lilies contain p-hydroxy-m-methoxytoluene, p-cresol, linalol, terpineol, phenylethyl alcohol and its esters, palmitic, benzoic and cinnamic acids, and, in the oil, up to 2.5% vanillin.

 

If you’ve never been reduced (expanded) to helpless gratitude for the close proximity of another person you once thought you’d never see again in a gardening shed while mining your  pockets for matches and ammo--that’s all right.  You still can.

 

Last night John fired a gun. Sherlock set some sheers in Islington on fire, deliberately, and they carried it all back.

**Author's Note:**

> John Singer Sargent’s painting ["Carnation, Lily,Lily, Rose"](http://www.tate.org.uk/art/artworks/sargent-carnation-lily-lily-rose-n01615) (Tate Gallery, London), the idea for which he may have conceived on a boat trip down the River Thames.
> 
> Summer, almost.


End file.
